BJP leader Suvendu wants to return to Mamata's party: TMC spokesperson

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh on Wednesday claimed that Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP, is keen to return to the TMC, finding himself suffocated in the saffron party.

However, the TMC will not take him back because of his "abusive comments" against state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee after joining the BJP, Ghosh told reporters.

In response, Adhikari who had quit the TMC and joined the BJP in December 2020 ahead of the assembly election said he does not reply to remarks of persons who were accused in graft cases.

Describing Sabyasachi Datta, a TMC candidate in the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation election, as a 'chameleon', Adhikari recently said it was a mistake on the part of the BJP to give him ticket for the assembly polls.

Dutta quit the TMC in 2019, unsuccessfully contested as a BJP candidate in the 2021 assembly polls and returned to his former party later.

Asked to comment on Adhikari's criticism of Dutta, Ghosh said, "Suvendu is suffering from tremendous mental depression as his dreams behind joining the BJP have been crushed. We have information that he wants to come back to the TMC along with two-three other leaders he had taken along

"But our doors are not open for persons like Suvendu," he added.

Ghosh also claimed that Adhikari had left the TMC to avoid raids by central investing agencies as his name had surfaced in ponzi scams.

Responding to Ghosh's claims, Adhikari said, "I don't reply to comments by people accused in graft cases and imprisoned in the past."

Ghosh, a journalist-turned-TMC leader, was arrested in the Saradha chit fund scam in 2013 and had been imprisoned. He got bail in 2016 and was appointed the state party spokesperson in 2020.